


The Avengers do Thanksgiving

by MsCoffeeBitch



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, Adorable, Cooking, Feel-good, Fluff, Happy, I make up my own canon, SO FLUFFY, Team Bonding, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Dinner, This Sugar is gonna rot your teeth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-04-30 06:48:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5154206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsCoffeeBitch/pseuds/MsCoffeeBitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy Lewis takes command and hosts the best damned Thanksgiving dinner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Planning Stages

**Author's Note:**

> I was helping my mom plan Thanksgiving dinner, and this just kinda happened in my head. I wanted to do something fluffy and adorable. I will say, I totally pulled some of Darcy's ness from my own history. My hubby is one of nine kids, and between all the spouses and little ones around now, any food related gathering (which is all of them, let's be honest here) requires you to cook for an army, ESPECIALLY if you want any leftovers! Also, I am from the South, so Darcy is now too. Sugar, hun, honey, darlin and supper are totally things that I say. It's just how we roll.

“Hey, J-Man, call a family meeting, please. Common room in fifteen minutes,” Darcy directed the AI.

“Of course, Miss Lewis.”

Darcy grabbed her notebook and colorful pens before heading quickly for the common room kitchen to wait for everyone. By the time they all got there, she was bouncing in her seat excitedly as she took sips of coffee from her mug. It took a few moments for the confused buzz of the Avengers family to quiet down. Tony was the one who really got the meeting going, “Alright Boobs, J said you called a family meeting and we didn’t break anything, start a prank war, miss movie night or finish off all the fancy coffee creamer without replacing it. What’s the deal?”

As he spoke, she huffed, trying not to laugh. “None of you are in trouble, this is a planning meeting guys! We are gonna do Thanksgiving. I will make the turkey, mashed potatoes, and the cranberry jelly. You guys need to do the rest and you can’t order it from a restaurant or caterer. Homemade only.”

Pepper stepped over to give Darcy a hug before she spoke, “You and I are on the same wavelength! I was going to start planning if you hadn’t. I would love to make stuffing and pumpkin pies.”

Darcy jotted down Pepper’s contributions into her notebook before turning to Tony, “Alright. We’ve got that, and I’m putting you in charge of the dinner rolls.” He simply nodded his assent to this. She knew how he worked.

Natasha was next to volunteer taking green bean casserole for herself and sweet potatoes for Clint. Bruce called green salad, and Jane piped up saying that she would bake pecan pies because those were her favorite. Thor stated that he would be in charge of beverages. Sam immediately said that as long as she left him the turkey drippings, he would make gravy with his mama’s recipe so she wouldn’t have to do that as well. This just left Steve and Bucky, but all the dishes had been taken. Bucky said he would handle KP and sous chef duty for her that day, while Steve informed them he would make the best damn apple crisp they ever tasted and handle lunch.

With that in hand, Darcy spoke again, “Cool beans guys! I’m gonna make a printout of what everyone is making to hang on the fridge. If you wanna make anything else, just add it on there. Email me with your ingredient list and Jarvis and I will take care of groceries. If you wanna bring anyone, just let me know and I can handle invites as I will be sending them to Fury, Hill, and Coulson’s new team. That should cover everything, so family meeting is now over. Break!”

Steve and Bucky made their way over to her, “Hey Darce?”

“Robocop! Capsicle! Come over here!” she exclaimed as she made grabbyhands at them for hugs. “What’s up boys? What are we having for supper today?”

Bucky snuggled into her hug as she was one of the few people he allowed physical contact. Steve spoke as he also hugged her, “I’ve got supper tonight. You do your thing. And… Uh… Thanks for doin’ this. We weren’t sure what we were gonna do for Thanksgiving. It’s mighty sweet of you.”

“Oh nonsense, Steve,” she shot back. “You guys are all my family, of course we were gonna have to do the holidays up right. Plus, this one is my favorite anyways!”

“Well, it really is nice of you, especially since you’ll damn near be cooking for an army.”

“Oh, sugar, that’s nothing. I really don’t know how to cook any other way. I’m the oldest of nine kids. For Thanksgiving supper with the whole extended family, we had to rent out the local church.”

Steve simply gave her another hug before he set about making their supper, as it had kinda become their thing. Shortly after Bucky came in from the cold and moved into the tower, Darcy had just showed up at their apartment with ingredients for lasagna and made herself at home in their kitchen. Steve was pretty sure that her domestic normalcy and constant presence in the evenings after that had been a big key to Bucky’s recovery. It definitely explained how comfortable he was with her. The blond couldn’t help but sneak glances at the pair of them huddled shoulder to shoulder at the breakfast bar putting together a neatly decorated list of who is bringing what dish with a second list of invitees. Once they finished that, they started planning how much of each ingredient they would need as well as the timeline for cooking. Darcy’s planning for large family meals had nearly the same military precision as one of their missions.

Several days later, on Saturday, Darcy showed up at the apartment to grab Bucky with a big bag of cranberries, raspberries, sugar, and orange juice. “Come on Buck! We are making cranberry jelly today.”

“Sure thing, doll. Your kitchen or the common room?” he agreed amicably, grabbing his jacket and relieving her of the large bag.

“Which would you prefer? I’ve got canning jars in both.”

Bucky thought for a moment before responding, “Let’s go with the common room.”

Darcy linked her arm through his as they headed to the elevator, and began speaking, “Cool! So I’ve got the recipe displayed on the screen behind the stove. If you can start putting everything together, I will get started sanitizing the jelly jars and pulling out the canning supplies we need.”

Bucky nodded and soon, the elevator arrived at the common floor. They swiftly set about working. He gave the recipe a once over, then set the ingredients from the bags Darcy had handed him out on the counter next to the stove before grabbing the sugar and spices and setting those out as well. As Darcy opened the flat of jelly jars and set them in the dishwasher for a sani-cycle, he started crushing the cranberries and measuring spices into the large stock pot. As he finished that, she kicked the heat on under that burner and the burner under a small sauce pan with the lids for the jars. Soon, the mixture of berries, spices, and juice was boiling and the cranberries were popping. The supplies were already all set, so now it was just a matter of waiting for the juice to be ready for the final steps, so Darcy made them up a large pot of tea and set a plate of cookies she’d made the day before between them.

“Thanks for helping me out. This all would have taken a lot longer without the helping hand,” she said as she bumped her shoulder against his as she munched on her cookie.

“No problem, darlin’ I enjoy being in the kitchen with you. It’s simple, I know what I need to do,” he replied before adding, “The company ain’t half bad either.” 

Darcy stood to give the jelly a quick stir and check on how the berries were doing, “Aww! Thanks Buck, I like your company too.”

“How’s that lookin?”

“I think 10 more minutes oughta do it, then we’ll have to mash it through the wire strainer into our second pot with pour spout on it. Since you have the sweet robot hand, I’m nominating you as the smasher.”

He shot her a crooked grin and bit into another cookie as he shook his head in amusement. She caught the look, and shot back with, “What? Why you shakin’ your head at me over there?”

“You. Bein’ a dork.”

“I’m not being a dork!” she shouted indignantly as she stirred the berries again.

Bucky threw his crushed up napkin at her, bouncing it off her back before replying, “You so are being a dork. You’re always a dork, but that’s why I love ya. Oh, it’s been 10 minutes. Do you just pour it all in the sieve and I mash it, or do you gotta do something special?”

“You gotta wrap cheesecloth over top of the saucepan then we pour the stuff in the sieve. After you smash it, we do a second strain through the cheesecloth so we don’t have any bits and seeds in our jelly.”

Bucky gestured to the saucepan had loosely draped the cheesecloth over, “Like this?”

“Yup!” Darcy popped the p in that as she hefted the saucepan from the stove and slowly started pouring the jelly mix into the sieve. They worked fairly quickly, Bucky thoroughly mashing the berries as she poured more and more into the sieve. Once this was finally done, Darcy carefully gathered the edges of the cheesecloth around the mixture of seeds and skins that had made it through the initial mash. Slowly, the jelly liquid strained though and she carefully pressed the cloth to make sure the got the most out of it. Finally, she re-opened the cloth and dumped the contents of the sieve into the cloth and began pressing that as well. Once this was all done, she added all the sugar and some pectin into the juice before setting it back onto the stove to come to a boil.

A short time later, after the jelly had boiled for 2 minutes, Darcy was carefully pulling hot jelly jars out of the dishwasher and moving the canning funnels as Bucky carefully filled each jar, leaving a quarter inch of headroom. Once the jars were filled, she set him to work carefully wiping around the top of each jar so she could place the lids and screw on the rings.

“Thanks again for helping out. Cooking with a friend is always a lot more fun.”

Bucky folds her into a hug before pouring her another cup of tea, “It really wasn’t a problem. Actually it kinda reminds me of seeing my ma and sisters doing this when I was a kid. It’s nice having some pleasant memories comin’ back. You seem to be pretty good for bringin’ those back, doll.”

Darcy enthusiastically hugged him back before the pair wandered over to the couch to surf Netflix, drink tea, bicker, and banter for a few hours before everyone showed up for movie night.


	2. The Cooking!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for how well received this has been! The kudos, comments and all have been such a huge boost and I hope very much that you like the next two chapters.

Over the next few weeks, Darcy had started to decorate the common floor to suit the holiday. When she had time, Pepper had started pitching in as well. On several occasions, Tony came wandering down to grouse about it while searching for the ‘bots they had commandeered from his lab to assist. After they had found the pile of decorations and what appeared to be the entire collection of fall scents from a Yankee Candle store that he had bought them on the table one day, they kinda figured that he was half-hearted in his complaints. With his additions, it actually made the whole atmosphere that much more cosy and enjoyable for everyone.

During that same time frame, everyone who Darcy had emailed invitations to had RSVPed. Darcy was actually pretty thrilled that they had all gotten back to her within a week and a few of them had even volunteered to bring food. Maria had said she would be bringing her mother’s corn casserole because it’s a Midwestern staple and Thanksgiving wouldn’t be right without it. Rhodey said he would be thrilled to be there and was grateful for the invite. Coulson had actually been the first one to respond and it was with a video of FitzSimmons babbling excitedly about how they were going to meet Tony, Bruce, and Jane. She had thought it was almost too adorable. Fury though, had been the biggest surprise. He’d asked if he could come Wednesday night so that he could bake ham. Darcy was definitely looking forward to seeing the stern man in a domestic context rather than his usual serious S.H.I.E.L.D self. She’d actually been so excited about it that she bought him a tactical apron as a joke.

The Sunday right before the holiday, Darcy started brining the turkeys so they would be flavorful and moist come Thanksgiving day. Bucky was actually a huge help with some of the heavy lifting that went into that as well as with moving the brining birds into the walk in fridge. Soon enough Wednesday rolled around and it had Steve, Darcy, and Bucky all in the kitchen with a veritable potato assembly line. Darcy washed, Steve peeled, and Bucky put his rather fearsome knife skills to work quickly chopping up the 25 pounds of potatoes before quickly throwing them into an enormous stockpot.

While they were working on finishing up the additional cook prep for Thanksgiving Day, Fury strode into the kitchen bearing several reuseable grocery bags with hams in them. “Nicky!” Darcy exclaimed, running over to the serious looking man, she gave him a hug before relieving him of his bags and running them to the walk in fridge for him. “I got you a present!”

He looked slightly concerned, but followed her into the kitchen where she produced a pirate themed gift bag. With a bemused expression, he opened it before giving a hearty laugh when he pulled out the tactical apron, “Now, that was not what I was expecting Ms. Lewis. I like it, though,” he stated as he put the apron on and adjusted the fit.

“Aww, come on! You’re family now. You have to call me Darcy,” she replied as she snapped a picture of him. To her surprise and delight, he actually posed for it. “Now come on over here and have a seat. Do you want some coffee or tea?”

He did as instructed, sitting at the breakfast bar by Steve and Bucky, “I think some Earl Grey sounds nice, Darcy.” She busied herself putting the kettle on and putting the loose tea into her favorite gold elephant tea pot before setting out a very large tray of pecan pie and caramel apple pie cookies for them to munch on over tea. They all settled in, chatting pleasantly as Fury loosened up into the family atmosphere Darcy and Pepper had cultivated in the Tower and especially the Avengers’ commonfloor.

Soon, Natasha had materialized and Clint dropped out of one of the vents to share in the tea, coffee, and cookies. “Nick, I didn’t peg you for a tea man,” the redhead observed with a small smile over the rim of her teacup.

“Well, you know me Romanoff. My secrets have secrets, but a good cup of Earl Grey in the evening is never amiss,” Fury replied with an amused expression.

The evening wore on and eventually everyone ended up on the common floor, munching on cookies and chatting happily. Eventually, they all settled in and started watching movies together. Around midnight, everyone had wound down and wandered off to their respective guest rooms and quarters to crash for the night. Darcy ensured she had an alarm set on her phone as well as asking Jarvis to remind her to wake up so she could start all the turkeys cooking at the correct time before sinking into a deep sleep.

Jarvis woke her promptly at 07:00, as per her request, he was also kind enough to inform her that he’d started a pot of coffee which would be ready for her by the time she arrived in the kitchens and that he had also bought her favorite chocolate chip cookie creamer as a surprise. “Awww, J! You’re the best. I knew you’re my favorite for a reason.”

“Thank you Ms. Lewis,” he replied, tone rather amused. “You take excellent care of the others, so I feel it is my prerogative to ensure that you are well cared for in return. We must stick together.”

“That was so mushy and adorable I think I’m gonna die dude,” Darcy gushed.

After a quick breakfast of oatmeal and eggs with her first cup of coffee, Darcy set about preheating the ovens. Soon, Fury joined her in the kitchen grabbing some coffee for himself. Darcy pulled out a stack of disposable aluminum roasting pans and started setting each of them out. She then pulled out a cutting board, her favorite knife and set to work peeling and quartering about twenty onions, slicing oranges, and tearing a number of heads of garlic into cloves. Setting those to the side, she pulled three pounds of butter out and started cutting it into pats. As soon as she was done with that, and Fury pulled all the turkeys and the hams out of the walk-in refrigerator. She placed each of the turkeys into its designated roasting pan before washing her hands, heading into the fridge once more, emerging with a very large bundle of fresh rosemary sprigs. She quickly gloved up and set to work sliding pats of butter, slices of orange and sprigs of rosemary under the skins of the birds. Once this was completed, she stuffed onion, bruised garlic cloves, and more orange slices into the cavity of each one. To each pan, she added a jar of homemade chicken stock and about a quart of brine before sliding them all into the ovens to cook.

As she was doing this, Nick had set his hams into roasting pans of their own and then pulled out a large sauce pan. On low heat, he set about mixing brown sugar, honey, apricot jelly, and a large bag of secret ingredients he refused to divulge despite Darcy’s needling to make an amazing smelling glaze. He brought that to a boil, added some orange juice and then set about ladling and brushing it onto the hams before depositing them in the ovens as well. “So Miss Darcy, turkey and ham are in the oven, I know you don’t plan on the potatoes going on to boil until noon, what do we do now?”

She mused for a moment, pouring and preparing herself her fourth cup of coffee for the day before finally, “Well Nicky, now we marathon Firefly and Serenity, drink copious amounts of coffee together and play cards. Jarvis? Hit it.” With this, a deck of cards materialized from a kitchen cupboard he hadn’t known was there which was filled with various games.

“Sounds like a plan. Do you know how to play gin?” He chuckled, making himself another cup of coffee and following to sit across the coffee table from her by the TV on which Jarvis had started the first episode of Firefly.

“Do I know how to play gin? My Gramma Lewis taught me gin when I was 5. Bring it motherfucker,” Darcy challenged as she set about expertly shuffling and dealing out the cards.

They were on their third round of gin when the super soldiers and the spysassins came to the commonfloor, Natasha wielding a doubled deck of Uno cards. They all grabbed their own coffee and breakfast of some sort before making their way over to set up camp around the coffee table. Once the round of gin had finished, Darcy and Nick each checked on their respective protein dishes he added glaze to his while she injected juices into the meat of hers and basted with orange juice and chicken stock.

“Okay guys, looks like Nat is set on playing Uno and we’ve got the numbers for it, house rules though. EVERYONE needs to put ALL their weapons into the locked cabinet under the games cabinet, stacking draw two cards is totally allowed, and Jarvis will serve as ref for any arguments so you can handle them in the boxing ring at a later date if you wish,” Darcy ticked off each rule on a finger before walking over and divesting herself of two lipstick tasers, a full taser, a Widow’s bite taser, and three different knives. Fury quirked an eyebrow before shaking his head, knowing that Natasha’s training had rubbed off on the PR manager more than he had figured. All the others followed suit producing their respective hidden arsenals and putting them into their assigned cubby hole in the locking cabinet. Bucky actually gave a guilty look to the sassy woman when she shot him an unimpressed look and held out her hand as he tried to walk away before pulling four more knives out of various hiding spots on his person for her to stash and then throwing $4 into the jar labeled “hidden weapons jar” which was also in the cabinet.

“Hidden weapons jar?” Nick questioned, looking at them all.

“Yeah! It was my idea,” Darcy shot back before explaining, “Game nights, especially Uno can get really competitive, so we instituted the no weapons rule, and for every weapon you try and keep, you have to put a dollar in. It’s kinda like the super spy assassin version of a swear jar!”

“Okay. So, what happens when the jar gets full?”

“I either use the funds toward future game nights, or we donate it to someone’s chosen charity with all of the funds from the pot after poker night.”

Nick thought this all over for a moment as they settled back in around the coffee table and each took a section of Uno cards to shuffle before finally replying, “Darcy, I’m really glad you’re on our side and the Avengers’ PR person. I shudder to think what kinds of shenanigans you would get into with your powers of persuasion otherwise.” She simply beamed at him as Clint dealt the cards and what turned out to be a the most violent, profane, and highly competitive game of Uno he’d played in his life commenced.

The game was punctuated with pauses for more coffee, glazing and basting of meats, lunch, and for the super soldiers to put the pots of potatoes on to boil. Everyone cussed over their cards, laughed along to Firefly, and sipped at their coffee and eventual sodas.

Even though dinner was scheduled for 17:00, everyone showed up at 14:00 with their various dishes and ingredients. They all set upon the kitchen to mix, bake, chat, drink and watch the marathon that Darcy had going. In fact, they actually started placing bets and making jabs at all the people playing Uno as well. Frankly, it was amazing having them all there like their own cobbled together family. Before they even knew it, everything had finished cooking and was set out on the breakfast bar, ready to be dished up.

Darcy stood, shut off all the TVs and clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. “Alright everybody! Eyes over here, you too Tony! Dinner is ready to eat, but first we are ALL going to go around and say what we are thankful for today. I will go first, and what I am thankful for is that we have put together an amazing family to share today with. I am also very thankful for all the helping hands who came together to put all of this together, but most of all I am thankful that the bad guys apparently celebrate Thanksgiving too!”

**Author's Note:**

> The cranberry jelly recipe is actually a pretty legit one that I frankensteined together out of some other jam and jelly recipes. I actually do can fruit and veg as well as jams and jellies. Mr.Coffee is Alaskan, so its something his family does and all of us kids get roped in to help Mom come canning season. It's legitimately one of my favorite things. It can be hard work, but seeing something come out of it and the bonding time we get is really a joy. I JUST WANNA SHARE ALL MY FAMILY AND LOVE WITH Y'ALL! *huggles to everyone*


End file.
